Thriller To End Repertory Year

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32118, 14 October 1969, Page 12

Thriller To End Repertory Year

A thriller instead of the usual comedy is to complete the Canterbury Repertory Theatre Society’s programme of subscription plays this year. The thriller, to be produced next month for the usual oneweek season, is “Wait Until Dark.” It is by Frederick Knott, the author of “Dial M for Murder,” and was seen in Christchurch recently as a film starring Audrey Hepburn. Rehearsals are now in the third week under the producer, Neta Neale, and the play will open on November 15, slightly less than a month after the present Repertory

production, the musical “Fings Ain’t Wot They Used T’Be,” is wound up. This is,a much shorter gap than usual, because the musical was given an extended rehearsal period; but it is not causing any special'problems. According to a Repertory spokesman the choice of the thrills to end the year’s activities has no special significance. “It is true that we usually finish with a light comedy, but we have been trying to get ‘Wait Until Dark’ for a little while and have only recently succeeded.” ' The spokesman described it as “very tense and chilling.” Like “Dial M for Murder," it is set in a single room—in this case a basement flat in Notting Hill 'Gate. But if the set is simple, the production is not. Though there is a cast of only four men, a woman and a girl, the play is demanding longer and more intensive rehearsal than usual.

By the time it opens, it will have had about seven weeks of rehearsal. This is because the play will depend greatly for its success on timing. Every move has to be calculated, refined and tightly rehearsed.

George Taylor has the leading male part, as Roat, the leader of a gang of men who terrorise a blind girl. The girl is played by Judy Douglass, and others in the cast include Reter Neill, Sandy McCutcheon and Mary Moran. One of the more interesting aspects of the production is that it marks Neta’s Neale's return to Repertory after some years absence.